Obeying The Rules
by Gypsy Love
Summary: This is what would have happened if Craig had left his father in tenth grade instead of ninth.
1. Chapter 1

He was planning on running away that night, totally. I mean he had completely had it with his dad being abusive and all. I mean, hit with belts and shit? Punched and kicked and everything? That just completely sucks. But he didn't end up running away that time. You know the time I mean. It was like the first week of ninth grade or something. Yeah. That's when it was.

He'd been sort of planning on running away with Angela, his little sister that his dad said he couldn't see. Angela was like five or something, and her dad was his step-dad, Joey. Joey married his mom after she split, leaving him with Albert, his crazy abusive dad. Then his mom died like three years later or something, or four years later, I don't know. Three years before ninth grade, anyway. Anyway, he was going to run away to British Columbia with her but Joey stopped them and yelled at him so he went back home.

Craig was like so desperate then, let me tell you. It was this kind of angry despair. He didn't see any way for the whole abuse deal to stop unless he took off. He had a bunch of dough his dad gave him to buy a new camera since he broke Craig's camera in the first place. He broke it when he was kicking the shit out of him. Anyway, he planned on using that money to run away and even tried to get more money, telling his dad the camera he really had wanted was like a hundred dollars more. But his dad didn't bite. He said he'd go with him to the place and haggle with the guy, which of course ruined Craig's sweet plan of getting like a hundred more dollars.

Okay, so at that point Joey calls and tells Albert how he saw Craig with Angela at the park and blah, blah blah. So Albert gets pissed. Like super pissed super fast and Craig sees it, of course he does. Because that kind of pissed off-ness means a beating. Abused kids are pretty keyed into the whole cue thing, you know. Anyway, he wanted to run upstairs and pack some shit, lock his like twenty locks he had on that bedroom door and escape like right out the window. It was a second floor bedroom but there was one of those overhang things that was like the roof of the porch so he could climb down that way and not like break his leg or something.

Well, his dad blocked the stairs and grabbed him by the shirt, he was all calm on the phone with Joey, he sounded real calm like nothing was wrong and he hung up the phone and then he like beat the living shit out of Craig. Beat him like a red headed step child, Jesus, I never seen anything like it. The bruises on that kid, they were like beyond black and blue. He could hardly move. He stayed home half that week with the excuse of being sick. The kid was new, no one knew him except Sean, a little. And people get sick. It's reasonable. Except he wasn't sick. He could hardly even move. He was pissing blood. He cracked a rib for sure, but his dad just taped it, couldn't bring him to the hospital.

So that night or the next night, I'm not sure which, but I know Craig was like in extreme pain on his bed, just lying there. His dad comes in and he gets all tensed up, all nervous. His dad says that things will be fine and get better if he just starts obeying the rules. The rules include not seeing Joey and Angela and being home on time and doing well in school and keeping the house neat and a bunch of other shit. He told Craig he was really sorry about "losing his patience" is how I think he put it, and that it wouldn't happen again, he promised. He'd promised that before but Craig kind of still believed him, or he wanted to believe him. And that beating was so bad that he was scared to try to run away again.

Avoiding Joey and Angela was kind of tricky in a way. He had to avoid Emma and Manny, because Emma babysat Angela and her mom was friends with Joey so you never knew, he might run into them that way. And Manny being Emma's best friend, well, you know. He hung out with Sean, being careful not to let on that anything was remotely wrong.

School wasn't going all that well. He was too uptight all the time, too wound up. He didn't really know what to say to anybody, and it's not like he'd want to invite them over anyway. But he ended up making a few friends, being talkative sometimes and ignoring the whole, "my home life sucks" thing. Emma ended up being a bit of a problem. She kept inviting him over and he kept saying no, and she'd say how Angela would be there and everything and he finally had to tell her point blank, "look, Emma, I can't, okay. I just can't," But she looked at him all critical and was like, "I know your dad doesn't want you to see Angela, but why?" And he'd squirm and lick his lips and look down and admit that he didn't know, that's just the way it was.


	2. Chapter 2

So he tended to keep to himself at school, just going from class to class. He'd see Spinner joking and talking to the basketball star, Jimmy. He'd just duck his head and walk by them, his long sleeve shirts covering the bruises. He couldn't talk to them, even though he wanted to. He was on edge at home, Albert had been in not the best of moods. Everything he did was wrong.

Emma finally got the hint and left him alone. Manny looked at him with love sick eyes, but Emma told her to just forget it.

"But isn't he Joey's step-son?" Manny said, and Emma nodded, her blond hair stringy around her face.

"Yeah, but he can't see Joey or Angela. It's his dad, I think,"

He was depressed. Going from class to class, seeing people he sort of wanted to talk to but didn't have the courage. Going home, his dad being all fake cheerful or in a bad mood and throwing around shit or shaking him or hitting him. Head down at school, skipping gym classes, skipping science. Getting detentions and lying about it to his dad to avoid a beating. The lying would catch up with him, he knew. Felt it in his bones. Hardly eating sometimes, the food all sour in his stomach.

He saw the cool gothic chic in some of his classes, Ashley. He really wanted to talk to her but what would he say? He was worthless. He felt it. She wouldn't want to talk to him. For awhile the only one he talked to was Sean. He'd go to his little shack house after school and glance up at Tracker's girlfriend. The girlfriend always seemed to be drunk. It made him kind of wish that he was drunk. Then maybe he could forget that he hated his dad and that he hated his life and that he missed Angela and that he missed his mother. But he didn't dare drink. His father would find out and then what?

He didn't dare do anything. He was home on time. He cleaned up everything after he used it. He was fucking up at school, that was true. But he'd pay for that. Sooner or later, he'd pay.

One rare day he decided to go to science class. Maybe it wouldn't be that bad. Ashley wasn't there that day, but her friend Ellie was. Ellie dressed in red and black, her sleeves long and skin tight. Her red hair had little braids in it, some were a darker red and some were black. Craig stared at her hair, at her dark eye make-up.

The teacher, Hatzilakos, pretty and blond and generally sort of nice glared at him, walked over to his desk.

"Craig? See me after class," she said, and he barely nodded, felt the thick tears coming to his eyes. Shit. Shit. She was going to tell him something terrible and then tell his dad and he'd be killed. He hadn't been concentrating all that great to begin with but after she said that he could hardly concentrate at all. Nothing was making sense. Maybe he could just go to his dad, tell him he didn't get it, catch him in a good mood and maybe he'd help him and not beat him within an inch of his life. Like that time when he had that golf club and he'd tried to run away. Maybe it wouldn't be like that. These type of thoughts took up all of Craig's concentration. And the minutes and seconds of the class ticked away.

He watched all the kids file out when the bell rang but he stayed at his seat. Head down, blinking back tears. Jesus, he thought, what a fucking mess he was.

"Craig," she said, coming over to his seat, her voice stern. He looked up at her.

"You skip class, you've missed five classes. You're failing. You need to start coming for extra help. You still might fail. You're in real trouble," Her blue eyes were narrowed at him and he stared at her.

"Okay. I will. I'll, uh, come for extra help,"

The narrowed eyed angry look changed to concern, and she tilted her head at him like she was trying to figure out a hypothesis.

"Is anything wrong?" she said, and when he was asked that it all trembled on his lips, threatening to spill out. 'Yes!' he wanted to scream, 'something is wrong,' But he couldn't say it, couldn't bring it out and make it real.

"No, everything's fine. I'm fine," he said, and he hoped he sounded convincing. She still looked at him with the puzzled look, and maybe she didn't believe him. He didn't know. He really had no idea what people believed. But she let him go and he almost walked into Ellie, she was standing outside the door.

"Sorry," he mumbled, and then he stopped and looked at her. She looked almost as sad as he felt.

"What are you still doing here?" he said, and kind of cringed because the question sounded harsher than he had intended. She pressed her lips together, looked over his shoulder into the classroom.

"I was just gonna get something for Ashley, since she's absent today. That's all,"


End file.
